Please help settle a point

Hello. This is my first blog entry in Bluffton. I am a regular on the Island Packet blog and there is one particular blogger there who said all of us on Hilton Head were dumb Southerns. Yesterday he said the Bluffton Today bloggers were much nicer and sophisticated. I know many of you and you are nice people. But I challenged him to post some of his inflamatory stuff in Bluffton and the good folks there would be just as offended.
I see he didn't post any. I am curious so I have cut and pasted whcgonzo's second blog entry (from August 9) to see if we're just too sensitive on the Island.
I'm sorry if this out of line. I'm not planning to regularly submitting you to this stuff. I just had to know your thoughts.
So here it is:
So, that should pretty much do it for the Red-State vote for me, huh?
If your specific god out of the thousands to choose from is the one true God, prove it.
Prove it if you want some credibility - enough to claim dominion over this country. Prove it if you want to claim some higher cause from above justifies this war or that war. Prove it if you want the rest of us to simply trust the president because he claims to walk with this god.
If you can't prove it - if it is nothing more than faith - step back a bit. Faith is not fact. FActs we can all agree on. Faith is not so easy.
First, prove Jesus was who he said he was. Actually, prove he ever even lived. Of course, you can't use the Bible as a source for the Bible. You should be able to figure out why not.
So,
The premise for the claim that a man named Jesus is based on a few basic assumptions.
1. Such a man did in fact lived and a first-hand record of his work (miracles - that is what makes him Christ) and words can be found.
2. His birth and life fulfilled prophesy
3. His death and resurrection are well-documented historical events (you'd think they would be)
Your own, historical… Jesus
Again and again I have heard people call non believers idiots for daring to state the Jesus might not have lived at all. I do not profess this belief. I do not believe things - I know or do not know. However, can you prove that he did?
Well, here is why many believe Jesus might never have lived at all. A founder of a religion and a worker of miracles would not have gone unnoticed 2000 years ago. There were MANY miracle workers of the day but Christ was a leader of men and an enemy of the state. He did not operate by stealth.
Strangely though a man such as Christ SHOULD have left and impression, he did not. Not a single Jewish or Roman historian working in his lifetime bothered to mention him.
Unoriginal Traditions that predate Christ (Sound familiar?)
First, it is clear to me that you all believe the story of the birth death and resurrection of Christ is an original story…which it should be if it were true as God would not fulfill man’s fantasy with his divine intervention. However, there were other “saviors‿ before Christ and they are well known to historians today. Here are a few attributes they were known to have.
• They were the son of God. An ancient conception: every Pharaoh had to be the son of God and a human mother in
order that he should be the Incarnate God, the Giver of Fertility to his country and people.
• They were born of a virgin sometimes in a cave, an ancient symbol for the womb of Mother Earth.
• They were born around the winter solstice December 25th or January 6th (the solstice changes in the course of thousands of years). So for Osiris it was January 6th for Mithra is was Dec. 25th.
• Devotees might be born again through baptism (of water, air, earth, and fire).
• They might bring health to the sick, exorcize demons, and raise the dead.
• They might have 12 disciples (for christians symbolizing the 12 tribes of Israel or the 12 signs of the Babylonian zodiac). Twelve is also a sacred geometric figure.
• They might die a 'noble death' at the hand of a Tyrant.
• They came back, resurrected and conquered death.
Early Church fathers, such as Justin Martyr, Tertullian, and Irenaeus, were understandably disturbed by these similarities and resorted to desperate excuses to explain them, such as that they were the result of diabolical mimicry. They accused the devil of "plagiarism by anticipation", of deviously copying the true story of Jesus before it had actually happened in an attempt to mislead the world. I kid you not here.
The Mithraic sun cult was still holding sway over Christians in Rome in the first three centuries AD. In fact emperor Constantine never abandoned sun worship and kept the sun on his coins. He retained the title of Pontifex Maximus, high priest of the heathen state religion.
The pagan festival of the birthday of the sun: Sol Invictus, on December 25th at the winter solstice, was adopted as the birthday of Jesus. The pagan custom was to cut green branches and hanging little lights on them….hmmm….where have I seen this before? At that occasion presents were given in the god's name.
Mirthra was not alone, other pagan gods influenced the faith.
The ancient sign of life, the ankh, known for thousands of years, was transformed into the Christian cross; the figure of Isis nursing her child Horus, Isis Lactans, became the figure of Virgin Mary with Jesus at her breast .The weekly day devoted to Sol, Sunday, replaced the Jewish Sabbath on Saturday. Existing devil-sacrifices were replaced by processions in a saint's honor, with an offering of oxen to the glory of God.
What about the Prophesy fulfilled in the NT. (Let’s use Mathew as an example)
I have heard the garbage about filling Texas with silver dollars being more likely than one man fulfilling the prophesies Christ was supposed to have. Let’s take a look at just a couple of those.
Virgin birth:
Mathew 7:14 Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.
The King James Version mistranslates the Hebrew word "almah", which means "young woman" as "virgin". (The Hebrew word, "bethulah", means "virgin".) In addition, the young woman referred to in this verse was living at the time of the prophecy. And Jesus, of course, was called Jesus -- and is not called Emmanuel in any verse in the New Testament.
1: Matthew claims that Jesus' birth in Bethlehem fulfils the prophecy in Micah.
Here is the verse Mathew refers to:
5:2 But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.
"Bethlehem Ephratah" in Micah 5:2 refers not to a town, but to a clan: the clan
of Bethlehem, who was the son of Caleb's second wife, Ephrathah.
So, do you know as much about your faith as an agnostic? No? Then why try to force that faith on those who know far more about it than you do? Why assume so much?
The history of your faith is more than you know. Fact is; you don't KNOW anything about it. You have faith.
Faith is not enough to wage wars. The country had faith WMD's were in Iraq. They were not.
Faith is for church. Facts are needed for governing.